


Garbage

by lily_zen



Series: Infected (All This Sweetness Left to Rot) [3]
Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Angst, Identity Issues, M/M, Sexual Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 09:22:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5243066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_zen/pseuds/lily_zen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jiyong's screwing everything up, but he can't help it. He can't stop himself. Seungri's ripped open a wound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Garbage

Garbage

Fandom: BIGBANG RPF

Rating: M/R

Warnings: slight sensuality, cussing, sensual descriptions

Author: Lily Zen

 

\---

Author’s Notes: Set after _Unmade_ and _(You Watch Me) Come._

Disclaimer: BB is real, so I don’t own them. This is just for fun, not profit.

\---

Jiyong’s hands are in his pockets as he watches Seungri speak from the corner of his eye. It’s not his usual habit, and it feels uncomfortable, irritating. He likes to gesticulate when he talks.

Of course, nobody’s asking him anything. They’re in Japan, so Seungri’s fielding all the questions because his Japanese is the best out of the five of them. Jiyong feels superfluous, and that always ratchets up his anxiety. His preferred coping method for that is usually tactile; he likes to hold hands, poke, hug, shake, or just wring his hands and twist his rings around and around and around.

But he can’t, not this time. The dreams are still too fresh in his mind, and in the worst one—his favorite one—they’re on a stylish interview sofa not that much different from this one.

He’s sitting next to Seungri, only this time it’s real, and Seungri is on his left instead of the right. Their hips are touching because it’s a tight fit with Youngbae on Seungri’s other side, his light brown hair minimally styled and swept back because they were changing gears, transitioning to a new phase in their careers, and really he was just sick of frying and gelling his hair every day. Jiyong can sympathize; his hair breaking off is genuinely his worst nightmare at this point.

Seunghyun and Daesung are seated on stools right behind the sofa to fit all five of them in the frame at once. They’re having a grand ol’ time, of course, making (bad) jokes at their own expense, and those of their friends’. For once, Jiyong wants to be back there too. He wants to joke and laugh, to take a backseat in the interview and let everything just wash over him.

He can’t though; he’s BIGBANG’s leader, and he’s got to be front and center, figuratively speaking, just in case the interviewers throw them a curve ball, and Seungri doesn’t know how to answer. Besides, he’s the face, and the audience loves to look at it.

So he sits next to Seungri, awkwardly thinking about dream-Seungri sucking on his earlobe, only able to follow about half of what’s said, and feeling like he wants to touch, touch, touch because that’s how he fidgets, but he can’t. Jiyong just can’t let himself do that lately because all he can think about is kissing Seungri, and it’s stupid, ridiculous that he should feel this way at his age.

Seungri hesitates after a question, and then after a second he leans closer to Jiyong’s ear, whispering in Korean, “They want to know what’s in store for BIGBANG after the tour, solo albums, duos, that kind of thing.”

And god help him, but he leans into Seungri’s space, feels the heat of him radiate up his entire side. As soon as their shoulders touch, Jiyong immediately feels calmer, a little steadier as though he has touched earth once more. Seungri anchors him.

Jiyong sinks his teeth into his lower lip while he thinks about how much he can give away here. YG loves to be vague about its plans, build up the comeback hype until the fans are tearing out their hair. Ji’s not much into that kind of game playing. He likes his fans, as crazy as they can be sometimes, and he’d rather just tell them outright what’s going on, so he and Hyun Suk compromise: Ji can drop breadcrumbs, but not too many.

He smiles at the camera coyly, still leaning into Seungri because now that he has that touchstone, he’s reluctant to relinquish it.

“Right now we’re all taking things a day at a time, putting forward our best with each show. Afterward, who’s to say? We’re such good friends though, it would be hard to imagine not working together,” Jiyong finishes vaguely in what he thinks of as his warmly impersonal voice. He’s like a sales operator, all ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir,’ ‘thank you for your time, sir’; ‘would you like to speak with the manager, sir?’

Seungri takes over then, touching Jiyong’s knee as he explains to the interviewer in nearly perfect Japanese what Jiyong had just said, and Jiyong doesn’t move away because for the first time all day he feels okay.

\---

“What’s up with you?” Seungri asks afterward.

They’re all piled up into a van that’s driving them back to their hotel. Jiyong had been the first to clamber in, and he’d wedged himself into the furthest corner on the second bench seat, practically in the cargo area. The heat didn’t reach as well back there, but he didn’t care, he just wanted to wallow. Then Seungri had followed him back there, ratcheting Jiyong’s tension up another level and ruining his plans for a nap.

Seungri’s hip isn’t touching his this time. He sits a little further away, knees spread wide until his left leg brushes the leg of Jiyong’s pants.

Ji finds himself lingering on that little detail, and on the way the tear in Seungri’s jeans exposes his knee cap and a bit of the skin above it, for longer than he should. He can see a few of the hairs on Seungri’s leg. They catch the sunlight, drawing his gaze down toward them, and he has to stifle the urge to pet his friend’s knee, to find out if they’re as soft as they look.

This is a _problem_.

“Nothing,” Jiyong says dismissively, and pulls up his mask to hide the fact that he just swallowed really hard.

\---

His band members all plan to go out to dinner that night. Everyone is going home for a few weeks, so this is their last night together as a group. As much as he misses everyone when they’re gone, Jiyong begs off the invitation.

“I just don’t feel up to it,” he tells Youngbae over the phone. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

He hears Youngbae open his mouth to respond, can pick up his indrawn breath, but then Youngbae’s temperament gets the better of him.

“Yeah,” his oldest friend says, “okay. You want me to bring you something?”

“No,” Jiyong says, although he appreciates the thought. “I’ll be fine. Besides, I’ll see you guys in the interim. It’s not like this is goodbye forever.”

 He’s leaning over his Louis Vuitton suitcases, carefully rolling and folding, and zipping up the pockets so everything is back in its proper place. It’s so routine, he can do it in his sleep now. Everywhere he goes, he unpacks and repacks again and again.

Most of his band members have given up when they’re on the road like this, constantly for months at a time, and they live out of their suitcases, dirty clothes piled on top of clean, everything full of wrinkles that have to be ironed or dry-cleaned away. Jiyong’s a little neurotic though; he likes everything to be in its proper place. Clothes belong in the closet or the dresser; bath products go in the bathroom; his shoes get lined up neatly by the door. That’s how he keeps from going crazy when he’s away for so long: he turns each place into a miniature of his home.

“Okay,” Youngbae agrees, backing down. “I’ll let ‘em know you won’t be there.”

“Thanks,” Jiyong replies, and hits the ‘end call’ button.

It’s an hour later, and Jiyong’s flipping through television channels aimlessly, sprawled out on his bed. He’s thinking about ordering room service, but the menu is really far away—all the way on the writing desk—and his stomach isn’t _that_ pinched yet. He can procrastinate some more. Maybe he’ll fall asleep early, and that way he won’t have to order food at all, he can just sleep through the hunger pangs.

The knock startles him, and Jiyong looks suspiciously at his phone to see if he’s missed a call or text, but the alert light isn’t blinking at him. He goes to the door, the fabric of his skinny jeans swishing as he minces his stride.

“Yeah?” he asks through the door before he even touches the handle.

“It’s me.”

And Jiyong thinks of not opening it. He thinks about turning around, going back to bed, and ignoring it. His heart twists in his chest. He just can’t bring himself to do that to Seungri, no matter how weird things have been lately, no matter how weird Seungri’s been making him feel.

He flips the latch open and pulls open the heavy, wooden door.

For a moment, they both stare at each other. Jiyong’s still wearing his pants, but he’s barefoot now and only wearing a threadbare tank. His hair isn’t perfect, and he’s stripped most of his make-up off, and he looks more like his awkward teenage self than he probably wants to admit.

Seungri, by contrast, is looking very grown-up. He’s still got his holey jeans on, but his shoes are nice, brown boots, the sweater he’s wearing is both stylish and practical, and he’s still wearing his jacket. His blond hair, which Seungri swears is going to be the first thing to go after their promotional tour is over, is still styled in its seemingly careless curls, falling over his forehead in a way that makes him look both edgy and just boyish enough.

He’s got a plastic bag in his hand.

Jiyong jerks his chin toward it. “What’s that?” he asks.

That seems to shake Seungri out of his stupor. “Kangnamulguk,” his friend replies and steps through the doorway without an invitation.

Jiyong backs up with maybe a little more haste than grace, watching as Seungri toes off his shoes, lining them up next to Jiyong’s like he used to do when they shared an apartment.

“Youngbae said you were sick,” Seungri adds, and there’s a bit of censure in his tone because he can clearly see Jiyong is just fine. Dodging their activities is more Seunghyun’s schtick than Jiyong’s; if Ji’s busy, he usually just says so and doesn’t bother with lame excuses.

Getting called on his shit is not something that Jiyong ever reacts well to though, so his response is a snotty, “I _was_.” It comes out more like defensive. Ji shuts the door with more force than usual, and the sound of the wood meeting its frame is like an exclamation mark. It’s pouty and childish, but it makes him feel better.

“Okay,” Seungri responds, hanging up his coat in the closet, but his tone still says, ‘Yeah, whatever.’

He walks further into the room, noting Jiyong’s bags lined up neatly against the wall, and the television playing some American movie with too many explosions. As usual, Seungri doesn’t give a shit about Jiyong’s personal space, he just sits on the bed with his bag of food that smells deliciously, temptingly like home, kicks his feet up in front of him, and shoots Jiyong an imperious look. ‘Well,’ it challenges silently, ‘you waiting for an invitation?’

Jiyong doesn’t want to lose face, not in front of Seungri (he does that often enough anyway). He stalks across the room and slides onto the bed next to him, and it’s such an eerie imitation of the night Seungri kissed him—awkward, teasingly—that Jiyong flushes immediately.

He clears his throat. “Thank you for bringing me soup,” he says. “I am hungry.”

“I figured,” Seungri replies easily.

That’s the thing is that Seungri always forgets his irritation quickly. He forgives and moves on. Everything is water rolling off a duck’s back to him. Jiyong wishes he forgot that easily, but no, his ire burns like acid, slowly consuming him inside.

Jiyong gets handed a large Styrofoam container with a plastic lid, and inside is the anchovy broth soup all loaded up with bean sprouts like he likes it.

Seungri has soup too, probably because he hadn’t wanted to make Jiyong feel bad, eating something in front of him that Jiyong can’t have. They sit together in silence and slurp their way through the takeout containers.

Halfway through, Jiyong asks gruffly, “You skipped dinner?”

“Yeah,” Seungri replies.

And there’s guilt there; Seungri had skipped dinner because of him, Jiyong thinks, _for_ him. Seungri had gone out by himself instead, and he had found Korean takeout, and brought it back with him to give to Jiyong so that he’d feel better soon. It was just so perfectly _Seungri_ that Jiyong had to bite his lip and fight against being irrationally upset. Nobody had asked him to be kind, after all.

He finishes his soup, scrapes the bottom of the container with his spoon, and then tips the Styrofoam up to drink whatever’s left of the broth. It turns out he was hungrier than he thought.

“Got anything else?” he asks, poking curiously into the takeout bag.

“Kimbap,” Seungri answers shortly, mouth full of food.

“Mm,” Jiyong hums happily to himself, really starting to feel better now that there’s something in his stomach and he’s not all clenched up around his own misery. He unwraps it, takes a bite, and then while he’s chewing he asks, “You know what I miss?” He barely waits for Seungri’s acknowledgment before he continues, “Burritos. American burritos. That’s a thing of beauty; everything good glommed up together in a tortilla. It’s like American kimbap.”

“It is _not_ American kimbap,” Seungri laughs as he finishes up his soup. “Everything’s in conflict. All the flavors, the textures, are in conflict; not like kimbap at all.”

“I disagree,” Jiyong argues wholeheartedly, getting into the spirit of his once-idle thought. “America is in conflict in general, so the burrito reflects its identity, just like how kimbap reflects Korean identity.” Yeah, Jiyong thinks, there’s an argument there; there’s analysis. If he had enough time, he’d start a blog all about the symbolism of food. He’s good at that kind of stuff.  It’s a little-known and little-used talent of his.

Of course, he’s also a master of bullshit, spinning yarns until even he can barely tell what’s real anymore. Maybe that’s all his talent really is. It’s all just a talent for bullshit.

Seungri’s laughing though, and tossing his head back, braying with genuine amusement at Jiyong’s bullshit, and as long as he’s laughing Jiyong thinks he’s okay with that being his only talent.

His friend throws his empty takeout container back into the bag and pulls out his own roll of kimbap. He leans back against the headboard that’s screwed directly into the wall, and he looks so good in his soft, black sweater that Jiyong has to fight not to stare. He wants to touch it; of course, he does. He’s a tactile learner, and he wants to know if the sweater’s cashmere or some kind of cotton-poly blend.

Seungri’s focused on his kimbap, so Jiyong thinks he’s safe; he lowers his eyelids and watches Seungri, devours him from underneath the dark fringe of his eyelashes. He watches how he bites into the kimbap roll, white teeth cutting through the seaweed wrap with ease, and Jiyong tries not to think about the dreams where those teeth nipped his skin, cut him up, and raked the coals of his lust. He watches Seungri’s throat when he swallows, and remembers how in one dream he’d kissed Seungri’s neck, marked him up, sucked on his Adam’s apple as his band member moaned. He watches Seungri’s hands move, gripping the kimbap, fluttering to the remote to turn the volume up, crinkling up the empty aluminum foil, and staunchly blocks out images of Seungri’s hands on his arms, his chest, his waist, his thighs, his cock—

“What?” Seungri’s voice thankfully interrupts Jiyong’s thoughts.

“What?” he replies dumbly.

“You’re staring,” his friend points out, “again.”

“I—I am?” Jiyong asks because Seungri’d said ‘again,’ and when was he staring the first time? Although to be fair, when wasn’t he staring at Seungri these days?

“Yes,” Seungri laughs, “like a creeper.”

“Sorry,” Jiyong apologizes, and he means it because really, he is. He wishes he could stop. He blushes again, and this time it’s deep, all the way down his neck. “I guess—I mean, I was wondering,” he hesitates a moment, scrambling for a reasonable excuse, “what’s your sweater made out of? Is it cashmere?”

Good save, he congratulates himself as Seungri laughs and says, “I don’t know. Here.” He holds out his arm. “Feel.”

So Jiyong does, rubbing his hand over Seungri’s covered forearm, and yes, the sweater is very soft. He wants to roll in it. His hand, however, isn’t as interested in the sweater as it should be. Without his permission, it glides down toward Seungri’s wrist where his long, slender fingers linger, tracing the bones there.

Seungri, eyes on the television, turns his hand slightly and snags Jiyong’s, lacing their fingers together intimately. For a while they just sit there like that, holding hands with a bag of garbage between them, Seungri tracing small circles on Jiyong’s hand with his thumb. He wonders what it would feel like on his neck.

Then Seungri turns to him, dark eyes carefully concealing his curiosity as he asks, “Is this about the other night? About the—“

He cuts Seungri off quickly. “No!” he denies, too sharp and too short.

Seungri’s eyebrows go up, dark lines still visible beneath the lightness of his hair.

Jiyong tightens his hand on Seungri’s stubbornly to reinforce his point.

“Good,” Seungri says pointedly, “because I’d hate it if your entire world unraveled because of one little peck on the lips.”

Jiyong wants to deny the accusation, but can’t; he is unraveling. He is because all of the sudden, all he can think about is Seungri: Seungri’s hair, Seungri’s eyes, Seungri’s laugh, Seungri’s smile, Seungri’s voice. He was writing last night—writing things like ‘I miss you like when the night sky misses the moon / and you’re gone, new / I howl at the empty sky and wait for your return’—and he thought he was writing for his next solo, something slow and sad, throbbing with misery. Then he heard Seungri singing to himself while he listened to his headphones that morning in the van, and it hit Jiyong like a bag of bricks that the song wasn’t for him at all: it was _for_ Seungri, _because of_ Seungri.

Seungri had ripped open a wound Jiyong didn’t know he had. It festered, black and gangrenous, all this unfulfilled sweetness left to rot.

What is he supposed to do with that?

Without realizing it, Jiyong’s  leaned in closer and closer to Seungri. His chin is nearly on his friend’s shoulder, and he watches Seungri curiously, licking his lips nervously.

Seungri turns away from the television again, seemingly startled to find Jiyong so far inside his personal space. They’re nearly breathing the same air, but Jiyong has the sick feeling that it’s not close enough.

He stares, unblinking, at Seungri’s face, the slope of his proud nose, his beautiful eyelashes, his bemusedly smiling mouth.

“Hyung?”

The term snaps him out of his fixation. Jiyong pulls back quickly and rolls off the bed, letting Seungri’s hand slip from his grasp.

“I—uh—“ he stutters. His knees are shaking, the muscles in his thighs twitching like he wants to run. “I need—“

 ‘…you,’ he thinks but doesn’t say.

“Water!” Jiyong blurts out instead. “I am so…so _thirsty_ ,” he mutters, touching his fingers to his lips subconsciously.

“Water?” Seungri repeats, and okay, now he’s definitely smirking.

“Water,” Jiyong agrees emphatically as he stuffs his feet into some shoes and grabs a jacket. “I’m going to go get some water.” He grabs his wallet.

“Outside?” Seungri asks.

“Yes.”

“Hyung,” he hesitates, licking his lips, “if you want me to leave, you can just say so. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Little shit, Jiyong thinks, that’s exactly what he did mean to do. He’s onto Seungri’s game after all these years. He plays the innocent well, but the truth is that Seungri’s a little mischief-maker.  

But Seungri’s got that look on his face that Jiyong can’t resist—meaning that he has a face, period; he just can’t resist Seungri—the one that makes him feel protective of Seungri even though they’re both grown men now and can take care of themselves.

Jiyong finds himself sighing. He rakes a hand through his hair and mutters, “Look, I just—I gotta go, okay? Before I do something we’re both going to regret.”

As he’s swiping his phone off the bedside table, Seungri leans toward him and puts a hand on his wrist. The contact stops him instantaneously.

“Ji,” Seungri begins, “you remember when you started wearing make-up, and we all laughed and said people were going to make fun of you? You said, ‘Gender’s just a performance.’ Well, I’ve been thinking, what if sexuality is just a performance too? What if we give ourselves labels and rules, tell each other what kind of love is good and bad, and in the process, we wind up missing out on a bunch of other possibilities because we’re so busy trying to fit in?”

Jiyong’s shaking; literally shaking because he is so scared right now, because everything is falling apart in his hands, all his carefully constructed ideologies and illusions. He’s supposed to be the master manipulator, the director of this play, but what if his only talent is bullshit? What then? What happens to him, to G-Dragon?

He stalks out the door without a single word, hits the streets of Tokyo with no socks in his shoes, palms a cigarette, and starts walking. He walks all night. He walks without a destination. He walks until he’s got blisters all over his feet, and he looks at the pale, white moon, stalking it like a hungry beast.

\---

_Still don’t understand love_

\---

**FIN**


End file.
